Dear Diary: The Eternal Ramblings of Trevor Watson

Sunday is my long run day. I'm usually up and out of the house by 8.15am so I can be back before 10.30.

This Sunday just gone, I woke up late, but feeling good, filled the Camelbak with water and off I went.

I loosely planned a route in my head that would take me a bit further than my normal 9.5miles+ into and out of Sheffield, and would also throw in an extra hill or two into the bargain (I think I'm turning a little masochistic). As long runs should generally be easy - they're for endurance, not pace, I took a fairly easy pace, and even managed a sprint up a couple of small hills.

I felt good for what turned out to be about 10 miles, but after that although running wasn't a problem, stopping and restarting (to cross roads) was. Ouch, that burned! However, I was able to keep up the steady pace and got to my finishing point near home in about 20 mins longer than my "normal" Sunday run. A quick guestimate of the extra distance would be 4km (at 5:00min/km) - an extra 2.5 miles, of which at least a mile was up hill!

I have to confess that I was quite physically tired when I got back, and a quick check on the map with a piece of cotton confirmed that the route was 13miles (half-marathon distance) give or take a bit, so my tiredness was not surprising given that I haven't run this distance since the Worksop Half marathon in October.

After a breakfast of a crust of granary bread toasted and spread thickly with Marmite followed by two fried eggs between two more slices of granary bread, I recovered sufficiently to tackle the rest of Sunday.

The consequence of this longer run is that I now have a hankering to run further. Much further! I've always stated that i won't run a marathon because I'd find it boring. However, I'm now thinking that maybe a marathon distance is only the appetiser for much more serious events (which takes me back to my earlier post on the possibility of doing a triathlon). Of course, the trick is finding the time and place to run such distances.

I'd just like to report that I have had no further luck in getting either my iPod or Sony camcorder hooked up to my PC via the IEEE 1394 connection.

Since my last blog on this subject, I have tried:

• Installed a fresh version of XP on a separate partition
• Installed Linux on a separate partition
• Installed the PCI 1394 card I bought in a different machine also running Linux

All to no avail
I even nearly spontaneously bought a Sony laptop at the weekend in the hope that because it's the same brand as my camcorder, they would automagically work together. Fortunately, common sense prevailed (and the threat of my bank manager paying me a visit with some hired heavies) and I didn't do it!

A friend had a similar problem with his iPod and finally determined that it required more power than his basic 1394 card would provide, so he bought a card with a separate ATX style power socket on it and this made things work. Now, to be honest, the fact that the iPod doesn't work over FireWire is not such an issue for me, as it works just fine over USB on both XP and Linux (yeah, I even tested this). However, my friend also mentioned that he'd tried his JVC camcorder on his 1394 board, both with and without the external power to the board, and the camera failed to be recognised when the power connector was disconnected from the board.

So, today, as a last ditch attempt to get things working, I have ordered one of these. As you'll note from the picture of the card, it has a power socket mounted on the top edge of the board. If this fails to do the trick, it can go right back where it came from and I'll only have lost a couple of £ in postage. This figure will pale into insignificance when I end up buying a Sony laptop (although actually, I'd prefer one of these).

I'll post up my success or otherwise after the weekend.